EyeDentist:
But if their presentation was couched in terms of ‘Let’s re-adopt the values of the 1950s,’ I could see how such couching would make POC, LGBTQ, etc, folks–ie, people who were marginalized back then–feel resentful of the suggestion.
I could see how it could be taken that way. The op-ed did address those specific situations:
Was everything perfect during the period of bourgeois cultural hegemony? Of course not. There was racial discrimination, limited sex roles, and pockets of anti-Semitism. However, steady improvements for women and minorities were underway even when bourgeois norms reigned. Banishing discrimination and expanding opportunity does not require the demise of bourgeois culture. Quite the opposite: The loss of bourgeois habits seriously impeded the progress of disadvantaged groups
I think that’s a fair challenge, but what gives you that impression? My impression (same as you, not data) is they do.
I remembered a freakonomics podcast that discussed marriage and how it affects kids raised with two parents. It doesn’t address the education for employment, work hard and avoid idleness portion, just the marriage portion. Reading it again it had some interesting points from actual researchers:
KEARNEY: It’s really hard for researchers to establish the causal effect of family structure or marriage on kids’ outcomes, of course, because we don’t randomly assign kids to married or unmarried parents. But there’s a lot of research that works really hard to isolate factors. That research consistently shows that kids who live with two married parents have lower rates of poverty, have higher cognitive test scores in childhood, have fewer behavioral problems. They seem to have better health outcomes. They’re less likely to live in poverty when they’re 25. They’re more likely to complete college and they’re less likely to become young, unmarried parents themselves.
KEARNEY: I am perfectly comfortable saying that it looks like being born to two, or living with two married parents is beneficial for kids. I know a lot of academics, they don’t want to say that, right? Because it sounds really socially conservative and preachy. But what’s really interesting is if you think of how higher-educated, higher-income parents are behaving, they are still almost entirely having children inside of marriage. Both parents are investing an extraordinary amount of financial resources, time and energy into their kids. In some sense, it’s a luxury to be able to say, “I don’t want to make social commentary like that.” Well, that’s because the kids of higher-educated, higher-income parents — they’re doing extremely well. But the kids who are being born to less-educated single moms, they are falling farther and farther behind.
full podcast transcript: The Fracking Boom, a Baby Boom, and the Retreat From Marriage - Freakonomics